Enabling Landing Page Sites

In order to design landing pages and blogs in SharpSpring, you will first need to enable a landing page site. If you attempt to access the Landing Page Designer without creating a landing page site, then you will see a message stating that you currently have no landing sites enabled.

In SharpSpring's top toolbar, click User Settings > Settings.

In the left panel, under Tracking, click Sites.

Click Options > Add Site.

Under Short Site Name, enter a name or label for this landing page site.

Under Site Type, select one of the following:

• Main Site • Microsite or Brochure • Blog or Informative • Help or Forum • Social

Under Domain Name/URL, enter the domain of your landing page site.

Click the Make available in Landing Page Builder checkbox.

Click Add Site.

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Note: Both Short Site Name and Site Type will not be public and will only be used for organizational purposes.

Note: The format of this should be subdomain.yourdomain.com. For example, a blog with a domain of SharpSpring could be blog.sharpspring.com.

Creating New Categories

A funnel is a series or sequence of landing pages. Funnels are required in order to create individual landing pages. In SharpSpring, you can group similar funnels and landing pages together in a category. To create new categories for funnels, do the following:

Single-click on the inserted form element to open up the properties editor panel.

In the Select a Form menu, select the desired SharpSpring form.

Click Form Editor in the properties editor panel.

Edit form parameters as necessary.

Click Save Changes.

Click Close.

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Editing Existing Landing Pages

To edit existing landing pages, do the following:

In SharpSpring's top toolbar, clickContent > Pages.

Locate the desired landing page.

Hover over the single page or funnel.

Click Edit.

In the landing page that appears, click into a content block.

Edit the content as necessary.

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Once a landing page is opened for editing, you can edit entire content blocks or specific content elements on a page. Double-clicking allows you to edit both sections and elements. Alternatively, you can edit the properties of an element or section by right-clicking and selecting Edit Properties.

Adding Pages and Metadata

Additionally, the Page Settings feature is where you add new pages to a funnel, as well as relevant metadata for those pages. To add pages to a funnel and metadata to pages, do the following:

In a landing page, click Page Settings.

In the Page Settings section, click Add New Page.

In the Page Title text box, enter a title for the new page.

In the Meta Description text box, enter a short piece of information that will summarize the page's content.

In the Meta Keywords text box, enter keywords that best reflect the content of the page.

Click the Allow Search Engines to Index This Page checkbox.

Click Publish.

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Note: Click Edit on a page in its setting drop-down menu to toggle the current page.

When entering metadata, consider the following:

Meta keywords are individual keywords or phrases that, when entered into a search engine, retrieve the web page and display it in the available search results.

Meta descriptions are the 160-character text snippets of information that are meant to provide a quick overview of what the web page is about. Search engines often display this text in search engine results. Social media platforms often display this information when a page link is shared.

Essentially, page visitors search for the page with meta keywords, and they view the meta description in a page's results.

For more information on metadata, refer to the following help articles:

Using the Page Settings Bar

You can quickly modify page settings and navigate your pages by way of the top bar in the landing page. The Page Settings bar displays the funnel name and page title for a given page. The information is displayed as follows: Funnel Name / Page Title.

Double-clicking the Funnel Name or Page Title box will allow you to directly edit the page's funnel name or title.

The Options drop-down menu allows you to do the following:

Add a new page

Navigate to pages within the funnel

Access the Page Settings menu

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Previewing Landing Pages on Different Devices

You can preview how a landing page appears on different devices. This feature allows you to view content on a desktop, tablet, or mobile device. To preview landing pages on different devices, do the following:

Note: Any page sections that had the Hide on Mobile toggle turned on will disappear when using mobile view. These sections will only appear on desktop devices.

Modifying GDPR Settings

The European Union's new data protection law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is meant to protect the data and rights of individuals who are in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA). One of these protections is consent. In this case, the consent to allow or deny tracking and the gathering of their personal information. You must give visitors the chance to either allow or deny tracking before it happens. If you add forms to a landing page or otherwise enable tracking, you will need to enable GDPR settings.

More Options for Landing Pages

Created landing pages have additional options available. To utilize these options, do the following:

In SharpSpring's top toolbar, clickContent > Pages.

Locate the desired landing page.

Hover over the landing page or funnel.

Click More Options.

Select from one of the following options:

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Option Type

Description

Copy

Copy the landing page or funnel content into a new landing page or funnel.

Unpublish

Remove the landing page or funnel from publication.

Preview

View the current iteration of the landing page or funnel in the browser.

Move to

Move the landing page or funnel to a different folder category.

Published Versions

View all metadata on previous iterations of the landing page or funnel.

Delete

Delete the landing page or funnel.

Search Filters

There may come a time when you have many landing pages and funnels. Navigating your available pages may become problematic. To better navigate your pages and funnels, utilize the search filters and options available in the Pages section.

The following search filters are available:

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Filter Type

Description

Category Search

Click the All Categories drop-down menu to select which categories display in the section.

Publication Status

Click the Published/Unpublished drop-down menu to select which pages and funnels display. Options include published articles, unpublished articles, and articles with unpublished changes.

Search Bar

Enter words and phrases in the search bar to filter articles.

Blog Articles

The Pages feature is is where you create content for blogs. In order for a blog article to be published, you must have a blog category, blog article, and landing page. Each blog article needs to be tied to a category, and that category must be selected in the Make a Blog template landing page.

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For information on creating and publishing blog articles, refer to the following help articles:

The URL in the Funnel URL–Secure field is the URL of the secure landing page. It will change depending on if you have CNAME records set up.

Your new URL will be as follows:

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Record Type

URL Example

With CNAME

https://slug.company.com/slug

Without CNAME

https://pages.services/site.company.com/slug

By default, landing pages created in SharpSpring are secure. They will have the https:// URL prefix. In addition, any asset provided by SharpSpring—media center links, uploaded images, and the like—are, by default, secure. This means that unsecured content is brought in from external sources. As such, you will need to change any unsecured links on your page to secured links.

Subdomain and Slug Differences

When creating landing pages in SharpSpring, the subdomain is what is used so that you can track your pages and link them to campaigns.

As an example, if you want to set up a campaign to track your promotions the landing page should be set up as something akin to promotions.domain.com. After that, you can set up a campaign to track everything on that subdomain.

Slugs differ from subdomains. The subdomain is defined when you make the site, and it encompasses all pages within the site. The slug is defined when you create the individual landing page.